Gillespie County

Horticulture Newsletter Winter 2018

Page 1 Winter 2018

Preview

Introduction

Short Guide to Soil Tests County Pecan Show Results Are Those Seeds Any Good? Strange Tales of Hor-ticulture Grow It Cook It Caring for Your Poin-settia Setting up an Aspara-gus Bed Plantastic Vegetable Gardening Seminar Master Gardener 2019 Class Sign-ups Upcoming Programs

Pg. 2 Pg. 3 Pg. 4 Pg. 5 Pg. 5 Pg. 6 Pg. 7 Pg. 8 Pg. 8 Pg. 9

I miss summer already. But winter does have its benefits. Cold winters kill off insect pests and peaches ac-cumulate chill hours from it. At least that’s why I tell myself I should be grateful for the weather as I walk outside. Horticulture may slow in the winter, but it doesn’t stop. See in our newsletter infor-mation about soil tests, seed tests, upcoming program announce-ments and more. If you have any plant related question, please feel free to contact me at the Extension Office at 830-997-3452. Thanks for reading!

Office Closures We will be closed on 12/24-

25/2018,12/31/2018, 1/1/2019, 1/21/2019 & 2/18/2019.

Short Guide to Soil Tests

Go to any extension program and you will always hear the recommendation “get a soil test”. There is a reason for that saying. Soil tests are great for helping to determine what nutrients your lawn, landscape, orchard or garden need. Taking a soil test is simple. If testing a lawn, home garden, or landscape, use the urban soil form. Take 8-10 six inch deep soil samples. The best sample is taken when you dig a small hole, and then dig a 6 inch slice off the side. If testing an orchard or field, take a composite sample every 10 to 40 acres. To get a composite sample, sample 10 to 15 times and get at least a 6 inch profile of soil. Take your soil sam-ples and dump them into a plastic bucket. Mix and remove large rocks. Fill a quart bag or one of the special bags availa-ble at the extension office with soil. If you’ve got different soil types or noticed different nutrient deficiencies, consid-ering sending off two samples instead of just one. Soil sam-ples do not need to be bone dry, but if wet or moist air dry-ing ahead of time is appreciated by the soil lab. Do not dry them in an oven. Most people choose the basic soil test. This test will tell you pH, nitrogen, phosphorous, potassium, calcium, magnesium, sodium, sulfur and EC conductivity levels in your soil. If you’ve been having nutrient deficiencies or unusual yellow-ing patterns, try a test with micronutrients in it. It’s more expensive, but it may pinpoint a particular nutrient defi-ciency in your soil. Soil is not tested at the extension office. It needs to be mailed off to the Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Soil, Water & Forage Testing Laboratory or a different soil lab of your choice. The Texas A&M lab is usually the cheapest. If look-ing for a different lab, try Texas Plant and Soil Lab or A&L Plains Ag Labs. The Texas A&M Lab changes their forms every year, and will not accept the old forms. Check their website or call us for the 2019 form in January. Please call us at the extension office if you need any help reading your results. One soil test every three years is recommended.

Page 2 Winter 2018

Display of the 2017 entries.

Gillespie County Horticulture Newsletter

2018 Gillespie County Pecan Show Results

On Nov. 30th the 2018 Gillespie County Pecan Show was held at the Gillespie County Extension office. There were 4 participants. The judge was Olan Tisdale, who owns Fredericksburg Pecan Company, located at 711 East Main Street in Fredericksburg. Mr. Tisdale judged 13 entries with 10 different pecan varieties. Grand Champion entries were chosen in three divisions including Classic and New, Commercial and Natives. Kermit Crenwelge won Grand Champion with his “Shoshoni” variety in the Classic and New di-vision. Melissa Nedbalek received Grand Champion for her “Sioux” pecans in the Commercial division and for her native pecan entry in the Natives division. Grand Champions, along with all other first place entries, will move on to the Central Texas Re-gional Pecan Show in Comanche on December 6th. Below are the placings from the Gillespie County Pecan Show: Classic and New: Shoshoni-1st. Kermit Crenwelge Commercial: Cheyenne-1st. Melissa Nedbalek Desirable-1st. Melissa Nedbalek Hopi-2nd. Kermit Crenwelge Kiowa-1st. Herb Nebgen. 2nd. Abbey Nedbalek Mohawk-1st. Abbey Nedbalek Sioux-1st. Melissa Nedbalek Natives: Lightest Pecan- 1st: Herb Nebgen Natives- 1st. Melissa Nedbalek. 2nd. Abbey Nedbalek. 3rd. Kermit Crenwelge.

Display of the 2018 entries.

Page 3 Winter 2018

Gillespie County Horticulture Newsletter

Gillespie County AgriLife Extension will be tracking chill hours at the office this winter. Chill hours are a way to estimate if a fruit tree has received enough cold weather to set an adequate crop. Though many fruit crops need chill hours, this is a particular issue regarding peach trees. Chill hours will be reported using the under 45o F method and the 32-45o F method. Counting will start with the first frost. Please see https://gillespie.agrilife.org/agriculture-2/horticulture/chill-hours/ for updates. If you wish to receive weekly updates for Gillespie County chill hours, please email me at elizabeth.mcmahon@agnet.tamu.edu to subscribe.

Gillespie County Chill Hour Tracker

Are Those Seeds Any Good? So you’ve been cleaning out the fridge in order to fit more holiday leftovers, and you’ve found some seed packets. Are these still good? If stored properly, most seeds will last around three years. Check out the chart below for more details. If the seed is older or was stored in a hot place, you will want to do a germination test to find out if it’s any good. Take a representative sample, ideally 100 seeds but you can go down to 20. Wrap the seed in a moist paper towel (pic 1) , place it in a sealed plastic container and place someplace dark and warm. Check again in a week (pic 2). Then calculate the percent germination. For example, if I tested 20 cu-cumber seeds, and only 10 of them grew, then my seed has a 50% germination rate. This kind of ger-mination test should work for most seeds, but a few need light or a cold period to germinate. If you know that your seed requires these conditions, try to simulate them for the germination test.

Page 4 Winter 2018

Gillespie County Horticulture Newsletter

Vegetable Average

Years Viable Vegetable

Average Years Viable

Asparagus 3-4 Lettuce 1-6

Beans 2-4 Okra 2-3

Beets 2-5 Melon 3-6

Broccoli 3-5 Peas 2-4

Brussels Sprouts 3-5 Peppers 2-5

Cabbage 3-5 Pumpkins 4-6

Chinese Cab-bage

3-5 Radish 4-5

Carrots 3-4 Spinach 1-5

Cauliflower 4-5 Squash/Gourds

3-6

Collards 3-5 Swiss Chard 2-5

Corn 1-3 Tomato 3-7

Cucumber 3-6 Turnip 4-5

Eggplant 4-5 Watermelon 4-5

Fennel 3-4 Dill 1-4

Kale 3-5 Basil 3-5

Kohlrabi 3-5 Oregano 4

Lentil 1-2 Thyme 1-4

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Gillespie County Horticulture Newsletter

Page 5 Winter 2018

Strange Tales of Horticulture

It’s easy to understand why you might cry after cutting up jalapenos. If you rub your fingers with your eyes, you can transfer capsaicin, which causes tears. But with an onion, you don’t need to even touch your eyes for the tears to start to flow. The answer to why onions make you cry is a chemistry question. When you cut into the onion, you re-lease a chemical called the lachrymatory-factor synthase. This enzyme reacts with other chemicals (amino acid sulfoxides) in the onion to form sulfenic acid. Sulfenic acid is unstable, and becomes syn-propanethial-s-oxide, which is a gassy chemical. This gas contacts your eyes, irritating them and pro-ducing tears. To not weep as you slaughter poor defenseless onions, there are a few tricks you can try. Try refriger-ating or freezing the onion for 30 minutes before cutting. This makes the combination of the chemicals slower, so you can finish cutting up the onion and get out of the kitchen. Or you can try cutting an on-ion underwater. This can be slippery and may wash away the flavor. Additional solutions are to cut up an onion in front of a fan or wear goggles. Not all onions are as pungent. Sweet onion varieties, such as “1015”, “Sweet Red” and others are less likely to make you cry. This is because these varieties make less of the tear inducing chemicals. These varieties are also easy to grow in your garden. If interested in learning more about growing your own onions, call me at the extension office or attend the “Grow it Cook It: Onions” program on January 18th . See below for more details.

Why Do Onions Make You Cry?

Learning how to grow something in your garden can be hard enough, but after it is produced, you

may be left wondering “What do I do with this now?”. The Texas A&M AgriLife Extension office in

Gillespie County can help you. We are pleased to announce a new three program series, “Grow it

Cook it”. This series is designed to help you learn not just how to grow a vegetable, but how to also

prepare and cook it. Attendees can expect to learn about different vegetable varieties, how to grow

the selected vegetable, preparation tips, and cooking methods. Recipe samples are part of the pro-

gram. Don’t waste that garden space for something you aren’t even sure you will like!

Program dates and themes are as follows: The classic onion will be covered on January 18th, heat

beating sweet potatoes on May 10th and the trendy versatile cauliflower on September 6th.

Programs will be from 12:00 pm to 1:00 pm at the Gillespie County Extension office, located at 95

Frederick Road in Fredericksburg. You can register for individual programs at $15 each or register for

all three programs for $25. Payment can be made ahead of time or at the door. Refunds for missed

programs will not be given and payments are non-transferable. Credit cards are not accepted. Pro-

grams will be taught by Family and Community Health Agent Shea Nebgen and Horticulture Agent

Beth McMahon. Please contact the Gillespie County AgriLife Extension Office at 830-997-3452 to

sign-up or with questions.

Grow It Cook It Gardening and Cooking Program Series

Coming in 2019

Page 6 Winter 2018

Asparagus tastes better if grown at home. It likes alkaline soils, making it a vegetable worthy of grow-ing in local gardens. Setting up an asparagus bed isn’t simple, but once done it can produce a long time. Set-Up 1. Locate a good spot with well-draining soil in full sun. Asparagus can get 4-5 ft. high, so place it north or west of your garden, where it won’t shade anything out. Till in a 3 inch layer of compost or com-posted manure a couple months before planting. If your soil is shal-low, plant in a raised bed. 2. Next, pick your variety. Asparagus can be male or female. Male va-rieties are usually more productive, vigorous and don’t produce the annoying red berries. “Jersey Knight”, “Jersey Supreme”, and “Jersey Giant” are good mostly male varieties. “UC157” is another good choice. Avoid Washington varieties. Purple varieties are not as pro-ductive as the standard green. White asparagus isn’t a separate vari-ety, though some varieties are more suited for the blanching process than others. 3. Asparagus can be purchased as seed or as a crown. The seed will add an extra year before harvest. Look online or in local plant nurseries in January for crowns. Crowns are typically more expensive in local nurseries, so if purchasing many, look online. Purchase from a reputable company. 4.Crowns can be planted from January to February . Mark rows five feet apart. Dig a trench down the middle, 4 inches wide and 4 to 12 inches deep. Place the crowns 12 inches to 14 inches apart in the furrows. In loose soils, add 2 to 3 inches of soil with a little compost so that the crown is covered in the furrow. Firm it up. As the plant grows over the season, fill the furrow gradually. By the end of the first season, the furrow should be equal to the surrounding soil depth. Planting this deep allows you to be able to chop weeds in the rows without damaging the crowns. If you are liable to forget to fill the fur-rows, just plant at 4-12 inches deep (go deeper if your soil is looser) and immediately fill with soil, but do not compact the soil over the crown. Water weekly, but let the top inch of soil dry before watering again. Be aggressive in removing weeds. 5. It takes 2-3 years for an asparagus bed to come into production after planting. Don’t harvest the 1st year, only a couple of stalks the 2nd year, and the 3rd year you can start some light harvesting. Tips on Managing an Established Asparagus Bed Every year, scatter 1 lbs. of 21-0-0 for every 20 feet, or as rec-

ommended by a soil test. Apply in late January or early Febru-ary. After last harvest, apply an additional 1-2 lbs. per 20 feet of row of 21-0-0.

Harvest spears when they are 4-10 inches long. It will proba-bly be every other day when they are in season. You can use a knife or snap off by hand. Do not leave behind stubs. Stop har-vesting or do not harvest if stem diameter is less than 3/8 inch, or if the head has opened up. Harvest usually lasts 4-6 weeks. Store spears in a cooler as soon as possible in a plastic bag that keeps moisture. This helps reduce future fibrous toughness.

After the first frost and the fern tops dry out, burn the stems or cut off the tops at ground level and throw away.

Growing Asparagus at Home

Another successful burn at McMahon Ranch without the volunteer fire department visiting.

Asparagus spears emerging in the late winter.

Page 7 Winter 2018

New to the Texas Hill Country and want to start a vegeta-ble garden? Come join the Gillespie County AgriLife Ex-tension Service and Hill Country Master Gardeners for a Plantastic Vegetable Gardening Seminar on February 1st, 2019 at the Gillespie County Farm Bureau Center, 237 Equestrian Dr, Fredericksburg, TX. Session topics include “Getting Good Soil in the Garden”, “Tomatoes”, “Caring for Your Garden After Planting ”,“ Preventing Diseases and Controlling Pests in Your Gar-den” and more. New this year are three hands-on breakout sessions. Topics include: “Seed Saving”, “Starting Plants from Seed” and “Creating Keyhole and Container Gardens”. Participants will choose two breakout sessions and one hands-on session. Pre-register early to get the hands-on session of your choice. Door prizes will be drawn at the end of the program. The program will start at 8:30 am with registration and end at 3:30 pm. There will be a 45 minute break for lunch. An optional box lunch is provided through Clear River Catering. Registration is strongly encouraged beforehand as spots in the hands-on sessions are limited due to supplies. Paid pre-registrations & lunch orders are due by January 30th. Cost for the program is $35 with a box lunch, $25 without a box lunch and $40 at the door with no boxed lunch. This program is not included in the Grow It Cook It program series. Please contact the Gillespie County AgriLife Extension office at 830-997-3452 to register. Payment is due at registration but can be mailed into the office (Gillespie County AgriLife Extension, 95 Frederick Road, Fredericksburg, TX 78624). Credit cards are not accepted. Transferring your registration to someone else is allowed provided notice is given by January 30th.

Plantastic Vegetable Gardening Seminar

If you enjoy volunteering and working with plants, consider signing up for the 2019 Hill Country Master Gardener Training Class. Class topics include composting, soils, prop-agation, insects, landscaping principles and much more. Classes are on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 9:00 am -3:00

pm, February 26th, 2019 to April 18th, 2019. Classes will be pri-marily in Kerrville at the Hill Dis-trict Youth Event Center, with the occasional fieldtrip to Freder-icksburg and surrounding areas. As a part of this class and in be-coming a Master Gardener, par-ticipants must fulfill an initial 50 hours of service and a minimum of 50 class hours. After becoming a Master Gardener, recertification require-ments are 6 hours continuing educational programs and 25 hours vol-unteer service on recognized projects. If interested, please contact me for a draft schedule. Please see the ap-plication here: https://www.hillcountrymastergardeners.org/become-a-master-gardener/ Applications are accepted until February 19th, 2019 for the 2019 course.

Sign-Ups Open for the Hill Country Master Gardeners

Page 8 Winter 2018

Kim Courtright , Raeann Reid and Linda Proffitt at the Hill Country Memorial Health Fair in Fredericksburg.

Donna Bellis and Lydia Jones at the Special Opportunity Garden.

Example of a Gillespie County Garden.

Gillespie County Horticulture Newsletter

Page 9 Winter 2018

Upcoming Programs In & Near Gillespie

County

Gillespie County Stockshow January 11-12th, 2019. Gillespie County Fair-grounds, Fredericksburg. Come watch the kids exhibit their livestock show projects. Free. Auction on January 12th, 2019.

Grow It Cook It: Onions January 18th, 2019. Gillespie County AgriLife Ex-tension Office, 95 Frederick Road, Fredericksburg. Learn about which varieties of onions to plant, how to plant them, harvesting, preparation and cooking tips. Cost is $15 per class, $25 for the series.

Plantastic Vegetable Gardening Seminar February 1st, 2019. Gillespie County Farm Bureau Center, 237 Equestrian Dr, Freder-icksburg, TX. Five hour program with general, breakout and hands-on sessions. Topics Register early to get your choice of hands-on session and to order your lunch. Cost is $35 with box lunch, $25 without box lunch, and $40 at the door (no box lunch included)

Statewide Programs

Last Chance CEU Class December 27th, 2018. Gillespie County Extension Office, 95 Frederick Road, Fredericksburg. Topics to be announced. 2 CEUs given, 1 IPM & 1 General. Last chance to get private pesticide appli-cator CEUS for the year.

Earthkind Landscape Shortcourse December 17th-19th, 2018. College Station, TX. Co-vers new landscape problems, landscape pests, dis-ease & pest ID and IPM. Intended for landscape managers. 18 Pesticide applicator CEUS, 6.5 ISA CEUS, 16 TNLA CEUS. Cost is $355. Register online at agriliferegister.tamu.edu/organizationListings/30.

Texas Pecan Short Course January 28th-31, 2019. A&M Horticulture Depart-ment HortTREC facility, Somerville, TX. Learn everything you need to know about growing pecans, from orchard set-up to selling. Grafting information included. Four meals provided. Cost is $250. Register by January 25th at https://agriliferegister.tamu.edu/

Texas Organic Farmers & Gardeners Associa-tion Annual Conference February 14th-16th, 2019. Corpus Christi. Keynote speaker is Ellen Polishuk. Add-ons include workshops, fieldtrips and locally sourced banquet . Cost for non-members is $300, $250 for members. One day passes available. Register online here: http://www.tofga.org/page-1863580

Southern Sustainable Agriculture Working Group Annual Conference January 25th-26th, 2019. Little Rock, Arkansas. Learn how to farm sustainably. Various programs cover cut-flowers, soil management, farm budget-ing and selling, livestock, vegetables & more. Pre-conference tours, short courses & workshops available. Cost is $190 until Dec. 22nd, $220-250 afterward. Register online here: https://www.ssawg.org/registration

Gillespie County Horticulture Newsletter

Page 10 Winter 2018

Name that Plant!

What is the name of this plant? First person to respond with the correct answer will get their name featured in next quarter’s newsletter. Picture by Dotty Woodson.

This newsletter is a publication comes out quarterly, with issues out on February/March (spring), June/July (summer), Septem-ber/October (fall), November/December (winter). If you would like to stop receiving this newsletter, please contact us me at

elizabeth.mcmahon@agnet.tamu.edu. For other questions, comments, and concerns, please contact us at:

Gillespie County Extension office 95 Frederick Road

Fredericksburg, TX 78624 830-997-3452

Educational programs of the Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service are open to all people without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age,

disability, genetic information, sexual orientation or veteran status. The Texas A&M University System, U.S. Department of Agriculture, and the County Com-missioners Courts of Texas Cooperating. Information compiled by Elizabeth McMahon, Gillespie County Horticulture Agent, except where indicated.

Last Newsletter’s Plant

Answer from last quarter’s newsletter was Basil ‘Cardinal’. First person to name the plant correctly was Raeann Reid.